Chapter 129: A Date with the Villainess [Part-7] (Vol-2 End)

Neo felt his throat tighten, and for a long moment he could not find a single word to say. The wind swept across the square, carrying the faint sounds of the city, but between the two of them there was only silence, and the warmth of her small hand wrapped around his, which was trembling so slightly that anyone else would have missed it.

He looked down at their joined hands, and then at her face, calm and blank as always, though her violet eyes were fixed on him with an intensity that she had never shown before. She was not asking out of curiosity. She was asking like someone standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting to hear whether the ground beneath her feet would hold.

’Say it. Just say that you won’t leave. It would be so easy...’

The words rose to the tip of his tongue, warm and ready, and he could almost hear how they would sound, gentle and sure, exactly what she wanted to hear. But then he remembered something, the ten months of silence behind her blank face, and the promise he had made beside the frozen pond years ago, saying that he wasn’t going anywhere. He had broken that promise once, even if it was by accident, and he could not bring himself to break it a second time with a lie.

Neo closed his mouth slowly, and he tightened his fingers around hers.

"Nora... I can’t promise you that I will never leave."

Her eyes did not change, but he felt her fingers stiffen, and he hurriedly continued before the silence could grow any heavier.

"I broke my promise to you once. Even though it wasn’t my choice, even though it was an accident, I still left you alone for so much time, and I don’t want to say something sweet today just to make you feel better, and then break it again tomorrow. You deserve better than a promise that I am not sure I can keep."

Nora lowered her gaze to their hands, her long eyelashes casting a faint shadow over her cheeks, and she said nothing at all.

"But I promise you this," Neo said, his voice soft but steady, as he turned his hand beneath hers and held it properly, wrapping his fingers around her small ones. "I will try my best. I will try my best to stay by your side, and if anything happens that forces me to go away, I will do everything in my power to come back to you, no matter how far it is, and no matter how long it takes. I can’t promise that I will never leave, but I can promise that I will never stop trying to return."

A long moment passed. The last light of the sun slipped behind the rooftops, and the lamps along the square began to flicker on one by one. Nora kept her head lowered, her shoulders very still, and Neo wondered anxiously whether he had said the wrong thing.

Then, slowly, she lifted her face.

Her expression was the same as always, blank and calm, but her eyes were not. They were shining faintly, like the surface of a lake under moonlight, and there was something soft behind them.

"That is... a strange promise..."

"Is it a bad one?"

"No." She shook her head once, and her fingers tightened around his. "It is the first time anyone has promised me that they would try."

Neo blinked, not quite understanding what she meant, but before he could ask, she leaned towards him.

It happened slowly, so slowly that he had all the time in the world to move away, and yet he did not. He only watched as she came closer, her violet hair slipping from her shoulder, her face filling his sight, and he felt his heart start pounding so loudly that he was sure she could hear it even though she could not hear anything else.

Her lips touched his cheek, soft and warm, and lingered there for a single, quiet breath.

It was exactly the same as the night of the festival, years ago, when she had kissed him under the exploding fireworks because her mother had told her that one kissed someone who made them happy. But this time, there were no fireworks and no crowd, and this time, she was not asking anyone for the meaning of it.

When she pulled back, her face was still blank, and she looked away immediately, staring at the ground as if she had suddenly found it very interesting.

Neo sat frozen, one hand still held in hers, the other pressing lightly against his burning cheek, and his mind was completely empty of everything except one sentence.

’Ah... It’s happening again.’

He cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to speak, but all that came out was a weak, "Y-you... that was..."

"Mother once said, that you kiss someone when they make you happy."

"I... know. You already told me, years ago."

"I did not say it was wrong then." She raised her eyes just enough to glance at him from the corner of her gaze. "And I do not think it is wrong now."

Neo’s face turned redder than the devil horns she had worn in the market, and he turned his head away in a hurry, his lips twitching helplessly upward without his permission.

’This girl... She is going to be the death of me.’

They sat there on the bench for a long while after that, neither of them letting go of the other’s hand, as the lamps flickered brighter around them and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky above the square. They did not speak anymore, since there was no need, and the silence between them was no longer the heavy silence of the past ten months, but a quiet, gentle one, like the pause between two breaths.

Neo then glanced back at her once more, watching her in silence as he suddenly remembered the gift. Well, it couldn’t really be called a gift, since he had bought it in front of her, and perhaps she already knew about it. Still, he wanted to hand it over to her now as a present.

Without hesitation, he took hold of her hand and pulled it closer to himself while taking the Twilight Petal Bracelet out of his pocket and gently sliding it into her slender palm.

Nora looked at him in surprise at the sudden contact as she felt something sliding into her hand. She looked blankly at the bracelet. It was the exact same one she had seen at the auction. She had also noticed Neo gazing particularly at the bracelet last time, but she had expected him to give it to his mother or his sister, Evelyn. She hadn’t expected that he had bought it for her.

She glanced back at Neo, something appearing in her eyes for a brief second, something possessive, as she slightly covered the bracelet with her other hand while looking away.

Neo looked up at the sky and thought that, for the first time since his return, the distance between them felt a little shorter.

’I will try my best, Nora... I swear it, even if I can’t promise it.’

Beside him, the girl who was pretending not to look at him tightened her fingers around the bracelet once more, as if she had heard every word.